In this episode we discuss the strange continued disappearance from public view of Qin Gang, the Chinese Foreign Minister (FM), and former Ambassador to the United States.
At the time of this recording, China announced that Mr. Qin was formerly removed as FM (although he still has not re-appeared in public), and his boss, Wang Yi, the Director of the Central Foreign Affairs Office of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), would act as FM. Mr. Qin’s disappearance was originally attributed to undefined health issues (which still remain the only official reason for his absence), but rumors have swirled that he was swept up in an anti-corruption dragnet, that Western or even Chinese intelligence services were behind his disappearance, or that this is all connected to a suspected affair with a Hong Kong based journalist.
We examine the culture of secrecy in the CCP and the unsettling effect disappearances of Chinese government officials can have on international security and diplomacy. We compare and contrast other countries approaches to state secrets and withholding information from the public eye on the basis of national security, which in turn leads our discussion to China’s revised anti-espionage law, effective 1 July (the law takes such a broad view of national security that exchanging information in routine business activities might now be considered espionage). Finally, we note that the disappearance of a prominent Minster and Party official (Mr. Qin has often been seen as Mr. Xi’s protégé) and the revised counter-espionage law are reminders to both governments and the global business community that China under Mr. Xi’s leadership continues to tighten information flows and put national security at the center of everything.